Willpower and Weekly Habits

My entire life, I have lacked a reasonable level of willpower. Leave a bag of M&Ms next to me and I’ll eat them all, even if it’s a 1 pound bag. Exercise regimes never stick. I sucked my thumb until I was six years old. At age 22, I still bite my nails. I somehow managed to graduate from high school and college, but I did every single homework assignment at the last minute.

In fact, in high school, I was known for doing homework assignments in other classes, the period before the assignment was due. Latin homework in math class, art projects in Latin class, and vocabulary homework in art class. A constant cycle of procrastination and laziness.

If I sound like the Queen of Procrastination, it’s because I am. As teenagers, my brother and I used to have competitions to see who could procrastinate longer, and still get As in all (or most) of their classes. These competitions finely honed my procrastination skills, and now I dare anyone to try and claim my title from me!

Except, the truth is, I’m stepping down from that throne. At some point, you have to start acting like an adult, and for the first time in my life I find myself saying "I’d rather start doing that now, than start later."

Willpower

Last year, the New York Times ran an article title Tighten Your Belt, Strengthen Your Mind, which offered insight into the way willpower actually works. According to the research of Psychologist Roy Baumeister (and others), willpower actually works a lot like the health bar of a video game character. First of all, it can be depleted. So when you use your willpower for one thing (say, spending less money), it leaves little willpower left over for other things (say, dieting). But, like that video game character’s health bar, willpower can be expanded. The more you exercise it, the more total willpower you’ll have - like a muscle.

The article also points to connections between blood sugar levels and willpower - basically, that hungry people have less willpower. Could small meals and snacks throughout the day help improve my willpower? But perhaps the most interesting, and helpful, part of the article is the list of suggestions for increasing your willpower "bar":

In psychological studies, even something as simple as using your nondominant hand to brush your teeth for two weeks can increase willpower capacity. People who stick to an exercise program for two months report reducing their impulsive spending, junk food intake, alcohol use and smoking. They also study more, watch less television and do more housework. Other forms of willpower training, like money-management classes, work as well.

I’ll be skipping the money management class, since my money is actually the one part of my life that I’ve got under some semblance of control now (see my other site about personal finance for college students and 20-somethings). But the fact remains that if I want to start using my willpower muscle, I’ll need to start exercising it.

So welcome to Starting This Week. Each week, a new habit - small or large. From brushing my teeth with my left hand to exercise regimes, from daily wrestling matches with a Rubik’s cube to finally keeping my fingernails away from my teeth. At the end of the week, I’ll decide whether the new habit is worth sticking with for another week.

Here goes something.